The Defilers (1965)

I recently received this from Netflix. I do admit that I enjoy a lot of what the 60's and 70's drive-in theaters had to offer. This film takes a long time to get started if you click to play the drive-in experience on the main menu. After several long nearly 5 to 6 minute previews you finally get to the Defilers. It was honestly an average movie at best. There is hardly any dialogue until they finally get to the beach with all the girls in the beginning. The cast is very unknown, but the do what they do best, and that is entertain on the B or possibly C list stage. So honestly this is a prime example of the experience you would have at a 60's drive-in theater.

David friedman wrote this and it's no surprise. The acting is actually pretty good for this kind of film which makes it more realistic. Two young thrill seekers kidnap a girl and make her their slave. It is "purely for kicks" states one of the kidnappers but the other begins questioning his partner and wants to let her go sooner rather then later. Their life seems to consist of driving around town or making out on the beach with babes. This film has a reputation for being rough to watch for its subject matter but I think most will find it pretty tame. There is however a scene or two where they spank the girl and hit her with a belt but not much is shown. I found this film fairly entertaining but it is certainly not for everyone.

Two sociopaths, Carl (Byron Mabe) and Jamieson (Jerome Eden), kidnap, torture, rape and beat up young innocent Jane Collins (Mae Johnson). Why? For kicks. Badly done and boring when not downright sickening. Most of the beatings are staged (badly) and heard but not seen, but Johnson's screams and crying sound way too realistic. The scene where she submits to Eden sexually is haunting--the look on her face will never leave me. She's not the only one tortured--many other woman are bitten (!!), slapped, beaten and in one truly disgusting sequence, a woman has her bare bottom hit again and again and again...To make the scene worse, she likes it and willingly has sex with the man who beat her!Mabe is just dreadful as the lead psycho. His laughing and overacting quickly got annoying. Eden was actually quite good as the other one. He showed some good acting ability and actually gave credibility to some lousy dialogue. Johnson wasn't that good acting but, as I said, she was very realistic while being tortured. There's also tons of gratuitous female nudity (mostly topless) and a blaring score which gave me a headache.Sick, pointless and dull--a truly terrible film.

When the "nudie-cutie" and nudist camp films began to lose popularity, filmmakers like Russ Meyer, Doris Wishman and Dave Friedman began to add a little violence to the mix and shoot in black & white to get the look of old stag films. A simple tale of the abduction and abuse of a girl from Minnesota by two thugs looking for "kicks." Sure it's distasteful but Byron Mabe is very good as the more twisted of the pair of abductors, which is all the more remarkable when you consider that he was hired as part of the crew but stepped into the lead role immediately after the original actor froze in front of the camera. The DVD commentary by Friedman is a very informative and entertaining talk about the making and distributing of exploitation films like this and the hilarious array of characters he worked with in those days.